Sensitivity of the DARWIN observatory to the neutrinoless double beta decay of $$^{136}$$Xe

Agostini, F.; Maouloud, S. E. M. Ahmed; Althueser, L.; Amaro, F. D.; Antunović, B.; Aprile, E.; Baudis, L.; Baur, D.; Biondi, Y.; Bismark, A.; Breur, P. A.; Brown, A.; Bruno, G.; Budnik, R.; Capelli, C.; Cardoso, J. M. R.; Cichon, D.; Clark, Michael; Colijn, A. P.; Cuenca‐Garcìa, J. J.; Cussonneau, J. P.; Decowski, M. P.; Depoian, A.; Dierle, J.; Gangi, P. Di; Giovanni, A. Di; Diglio, S.; Santos, J. M. F. dos; Drexlin, G.; Eitel, K.; Engel, R.; Ferella, A. D.; Fischer, H.; Galloway, M.; Gao, F.; Girard, François; Glück, F.; Grandi, L.; Größle, Robin; Gumbsheimer, R.; Hansmann-Menzemer, S.; Jörg, Florian; Khundzakishvili, G.; Kopec, A.; Kuger, F.; Krauss, Lawrence M.; Landsman, H.; Lang, R. F.; Lindemann, S.; Lindner, M.; Lopes, J. A. M.; Villalpando, A. Loya; Macolino, C.; Manfredini, A.; Undagoitia, T. Marrodán; Masbou, J.; Masson, E.; Meinhardt, Patrick; Milutinović, Sanja; Molinario, A.; Monteiro, C. M. B.; Murra, M.; Oberlack, U.; Pandurović, M.; Peres, R.; Pienaar, J.; Pierre, Maxime; Pizzella, V.; Qin, J.; García, D. Ramírez; Reichard, S.; Rupp, N.; Sánchez-Lucas, P.; Sartorelli, G.; Schulte, D.; Schümann, M.; Lavina, L. Scotto; Selvi, M.; Silva, Miguel; Simgen, H.; Steidl, M.; Terliuk, A.; Therreau, C.; Thers, D.; Thieme, K.; Trotta, Roberto; Tunnell, C.; Valerius, K.; Volta, G.; Vorkapic, D.; Weinheimer, C.; Wittweg, C.; Wolf, J.; Zopounidis, J. P.; Zuber, Κ.

doi:10.1140/epjc/s10052-020-8196-z

Cited by 61 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Furthermore, the cosmicmuon-induced neutron capture process of 136 Xe creates 137 Xe, which then beta decays (Q = 4.16 MeV; T 1/2 = 3.82 min). The impact of 137 Xe proves to be negligible at the level of 10 −3 per tonne-year per keV, three orders of magnitude lower than 136 Xe double-beta decay [44]. These 136 Xe background contributions are removable through isotopic depletion.…”

Section: The Darwin Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…The more notable contributors have historically been the stainless steel cryostat and photosensors [39]. A materials background component derived from the DARWIN simulation in [44], which considers a more radiopure titanium cryostat, is included. The long-lived (T 1/2 = 59.1 years), cosmogenically activated 44 Ti contributes to the materials background through its daughter 44 Sc, which subsequently decays (T 1/2 = 3.8 h) with the emission of a 2.66 MeV gamma.…”

Section: The Darwin Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A materials background component derived from the DARWIN simulation in [44], which considers a more radiopure titanium cryostat, is included. The long-lived (T 1/2 = 59.1 years), cosmogenically activated 44 Ti contributes to the materials background through its daughter 44 Sc, which subsequently decays (T 1/2 = 3.8 h) with the emission of a 2.66 MeV gamma. The simulated materials spectrum is adapted to this study by incorporating position-dependent multiscatter resolution, 3-15 mm, and selecting events within a 30 t superellipsoidal fiducial volume that minimizes the contribution of these Compton scatters below recoil energies of ∼200 keV.…”

Section: The Darwin Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The neutrinoless double-beta decay experiment EXO-200 [45], which uses a LXe volume enriched in 136 Xe to 80.6%, has already demonstrated the possibility to alter the isotopic composition through ultracentrifugation [46]. Depletion, however, would diminish the prospects for a neutrinoless double-beta decay search with 136 Xe in DARWIN [44]. Lastly, 124 Xe decays via double electron capture (T 1/2 = 1.4 × 10 22 years) [47,48], as first observed in XENON1T [49].…”

Section: The Darwin Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Solar neutrino detection sensitivity in DARWIN via electron scattering

Aalbers¹,

Agostini²,

Maouloud³

et al. 2020

Eur. Phys. J. C

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We detail the sensitivity of the proposed liquid xenon DARWIN observatory to solar neutrinos via elastic electron scattering. We find that DARWIN will have the potential to measure the fluxes of five solar neutrino components: pp, $$^7$$ 7 Be, $$^{13}$$ 13 N, $$^{15}$$ 15 O and pep. The precision of the $$^{13}$$ 13 N, $$^{15}$$ 15 O and pep components is hindered by the double-beta decay of $$^{136}$$ 136 Xe and, thus, would benefit from a depleted target. A high-statistics observation of pp neutrinos would allow us to infer the values of the electroweak mixing angle, $$\sin ^2\theta _w$$ sin 2 θ w , and the electron-type neutrino survival probability, $$P_{ee}$$ P ee , in the electron recoil energy region from a few keV up to 200 keV for the first time, with relative precision of 5% and 4%, respectively, with 10 live years of data and a 30 tonne fiducial volume. An observation of pp and $$^7$$ 7 Be neutrinos would constrain the neutrino-inferred solar luminosity down to 0.2%. A combination of all flux measurements would distinguish between the high- (GS98) and low-metallicity (AGS09) solar models with 2.1–2.5$$\sigma $$ σ significance, independent of external measurements from other experiments or a measurement of $$^8$$ 8 B neutrinos through coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering in DARWIN. Finally, we demonstrate that with a depleted target DARWIN may be sensitive to the neutrino capture process of $$^{131}$$ 131 Xe.

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Section: The Darwin Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 88%

Section: The Darwin Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Darwin Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Darwin Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Solar neutrino detection sensitivity in DARWIN via electron scattering

Aalbers¹,

Agostini²,

Maouloud³

et al. 2020

Eur. Phys. J. C

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“…Xenon-based detectors also play an essential role for the direct detection of dark matter, like in XENON1T [174], LUX-ZEPLIN [175,176], PANDAX [177], XMASS [178], and future DARWIN [179]. Sensitivity of some of these projects also to the neutrinoless DBD of 136 Xe has been evaluated, taking advantage of the significant amount of this isotope even without isotopic enrichment [180,181]. Purification systems for the liquid xenon are supposed to remove all non-noble radionuclides, but studies of cosmogenic activation in xenon have been made from different calculations and measurements.…”

Section: Activation Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cosmogenic Activation in Double Beta Decay Experiments

Cebrián

2020

Universe

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Double beta decay is a very rare nuclear process and, therefore, experiments intended to detect it must be operated deep underground and in ultra-low background conditions. Long-lived radioisotopes produced by the previous exposure of materials to cosmic rays on the Earth’s surface or even underground can become problematic for the required sensitivity. Here, the studies developed to quantify and reduce the activation yields in detectors and materials used in the set-up of these experiments will be reviewed, considering target materials like germanium, tellurium and xenon together with other ones commonly used like copper, lead, stainless steel or argon. Calculations following very different approaches and measurements from irradiation experiments using beams or directly cosmic rays will be considered for relevant radioisotopes. The effect of cosmogenic activation in present and future double beta decay projects based on different types of detectors will be analyzed too.

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Boosting background suppression in the NEXT experiment through Richardson-Lucy deconvolution

Simón¹,

Ifergan²,

Redwine³

et al. 2021

J. High Energ. Phys.

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Next-generation neutrinoless double beta decay experiments aim for half-life sensitivities of ∼ 1027 yr, requiring suppressing backgrounds to < 1 count/tonne/yr. For this, any extra background rejection handle, beyond excellent energy resolution and the use of extremely radiopure materials, is of utmost importance. The NEXT experiment exploits differences in the spatial ionization patterns of double beta decay and single-electron events to discriminate signal from background. While the former display two Bragg peak dense ionization regions at the opposite ends of the track, the latter typically have only one such feature. Thus, comparing the energies at the track extremes provides an additional rejection tool. The unique combination of the topology-based background discrimination and excellent energy resolution (1% FWHM at the Q-value of the decay) is the distinguishing feature of NEXT. Previous studies demonstrated a topological background rejection factor of ∼ 5 when reconstructing electron-positron pairs in the 208Tl 1.6 MeV double escape peak (with Compton events as background), recorded in the NEXT-White demonstrator at the Laboratorio Subterráneo de Canfranc, with 72% signal efficiency. This was recently improved through the use of a deep convolutional neural network to yield a background rejection factor of ∼ 10 with 65% signal efficiency. Here, we present a new reconstruction method, based on the Richardson-Lucy deconvolution algorithm, which allows reversing the blurring induced by electron diffusion and electroluminescence light production in the NEXT TPC. The new method yields highly refined 3D images of reconstructed events, and, as a result, significantly improves the topological background discrimination. When applied to real-data 1.6 MeV e−e+ pairs, it leads to a background rejection factor of 27 at 57% signal efficiency.

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Sensitivity of the DARWIN observatory to the neutrinoless double beta decay of $$^{136}$$Xe

Cited by 61 publications

References 36 publications

Solar neutrino detection sensitivity in DARWIN via electron scattering

Solar neutrino detection sensitivity in DARWIN via electron scattering

Cosmogenic Activation in Double Beta Decay Experiments

Boosting background suppression in the NEXT experiment through Richardson-Lucy deconvolution

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